Bugs Infest Persia

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Bugs Infest Persia

You can initiate stealth kills while jumping off ledges and walls if you're speedy enough.

Courtesy of Ubisoft

Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones feels like two games.

When I'm making death-defying leaps across the rooftops of ancient Babylon, silently slitting the throats of unsuspecting guards as I rush by, * Two Thrones* feels like one of the best games I've played all year. But then my mind boggles at the hellish bugs and obvious design flaws.

The Prince of Persia series has had a rocky history as of late. Last year's Warrior Within took the family-friendly original, cut out a great deal of the breathtaking aerial acrobatic puzzles, filled it with boring melee combat and drenched the whole thing in an "edgy" metal soundtrack and M-rated dialogue.

What makes Two Thrones an altogether more pleasant experience, besides the return to Arabian music and sunny cityscapes, is the fact that you can avoid much of the combat. The Prince now has the ability to sneak up on enemies and perform a "stealth kill" by tapping the attack button at the right time.

If your rhythm is off, you'll be discovered and other enemies will be alerted. At this point, if you have enough magical energy in store, you can use the Prince's signature ability to rewind time and try again. Later in the game, the Prince will be able to slow down and speed up time, but the rewind ability is by far the most useful.

In a quirky, auto-referential nod to the series' ill-fated redesign, the Prince has gone a bit bipolar: At certain points during the game he transforms into the rage-fueled Dark Prince, and his energy is slowly consumed unless he kills enemies and feeds off their souls; to make this easier, the Dark Prince is magically bound to a long, chainlike weapon called the Daggertail.

It is probably not coincidental that God of War, released 10 months ago, featured the exact same plot device and resultant gameplay. But decapitating enemies with the massive chain makes combat, mostly unavoidable in the Dark segments, far less of a chore.

But just when things are going well, up pop some frustrating problems.

For a game that relies so much on trial-and-error leaps of faith, it sure is stingy with checkpoints. When you die, the game will often send you back much too far, usually to the beginning of a lengthy platforming section or puzzle. They're fun the first time but boring thereafter, because there's only one way to navigate each series of leaps, wall-runs and stealth kills.

I love the unique storytelling style in which characters narrate the plot, as if telling an ancient tale, during gameplay. But the game's environmental noises are sometimes so loud they overpower the voice tracks. So if you want to hear the story, the game forces you to stop moving while you wait for the voiceovers to finish. Combining story and gameplay into a seamless whole is impossible, and you may not even be able to hear the voices – sometimes, the audio tracks will become completely inaudible.

And that's not the only bug. Twice, the GameCube version fatally crashed on me. This is unacceptable for a console game, and the fact that last year's game suffered the same problems is not heartening.

In the end, I had so much fun with the new stealth mechanics that Two Thrones felt like a completely different game rather than a rehashed yearly sequel. The briskly paced action was enough to make me put up with the design flaws and show-stopping bugs, and the whole package is thus still worth a buy for fans of acrobatic action. The Prince of Persia series was definitely in trouble, but this is, in most respects, a solid return to form.